My Sweet Folly (49 page)

“Perhaps that is what you have meant all along?” She looked at him tentatively under her lashes. “A mock wedding?”

“The notion occurred to me,” he said.

“Well, then,” she said, turning. She looked at their distorted reflections in a pier mirror hung on the wall. “That is what we will do.”

There was a long silence. Folie was trying to focus her mind on what excuse might extricate them after a counterfeit ceremony performed before the greatest gossip on Curzon Street, but all she could think was that Melinda would be ruined by this. Irreparably ruined. Folie knew of a Tetham girl who had lost her chance at becoming engaged because her mother, still youthful enough to be charming, had been seen conversing with the mayor while he was in his shirtsleeves. For all Folie’s defiant claim to Robert that she was too old to care for such things, she was well aware that to be only thirty and a widow was to be judged on a razor’s edge of decorum, just as Mrs. Paine had said.

“I do not think it will suffice, Folie,” he said.
 

She wet her lips. “What shall we do?”
 

“Marry,” he said harshly. “There appears to be nothing else for it.”

No, she thought. You will wish me to Japan, and I cannot bear that.

“I know!” she said. “We can have a terrible argument just before the ceremony, and break the engagement!”

“And what does that accomplish, pray? Even more talk, and still nowhere for you to stay with any safety.”

“I cannot believe we are in such a spot over such a stupid thing,” she said miserably. “I cannot believe it. But—if I should ruin Melinda’s chances by my behavior—oh, I don’t know what I should do!”

“Come, you make it sound worse than the prison ship.” He reached out and pushed her chin up with a rough touch. “Show some spunk.”

Folie pulled her face away. “Do not mock me, if you please.” He had that derisive edge in his voice, and she was afraid that he would say something even more cutting if she did not prevent him. “I must have a moment to compose myself,” she said, moving toward the door. “I will be upstairs.”

Lander was waiting with “Dr. Joyce” in the breakfast room. When Robert returned, both of them hit him instantly with the same comment Folie had given.

“Are you mad, sir?” Lander demanded, standing beside the table. “This is not at all what we had planned.”

“No,” Robert said shortly. “Of course it isn’t. Of course I am mad.” He sat down in a chair, his hands in his pockets, his legs sprawled before him.

“We’ve been talking it over,” Lander said. “We don’t see how the thing can be counterfeited, not to any purpose. For one thing, I refuse to participate in a fraudulent marriage ceremony—it’s as illegal as murder—and for another—”

“It isn’t going to be fraudulent.” Robert flung himself out of the chair. “Isn’t there something—a special license—how do I get it? Where do I go?”

Lander stared. “Sir! You don’t mean you’re going to marry her?”

Robert paced to the small window that overlooked the back garden. “I said I was mad, did I not?”

“I do not think Mrs. Hamilton deserves that sort of disrespect,” Lander said angrily.

The fact that Robert agreed did not improve his temper. He shrugged as if he did not care. “She’ll have a whole lifetime to punish me for it, won’t she? A woman’s supreme object!”

“You surprise me, sir,” Lander said in a lower voice.

Robert did not answer. He rubbed his thumbnail over a speck of white paint on the window glass, peeling it off and flicking it away.

“I don’t suppose that Mrs. Hamilton’s object can ever have been to punish anyone,” Lander said.

“You don’t know much of women,” Robert said. “Now tell me where I must go for the documents.”

“Doctor’s Commons,” his rapscallion mentor offered obligingly. “Just to the south of St. Paul’s. It will cost you a pile of guineas to have a special license of the archbishop, but simple enough.
 
You’ve no residency to prove, and you may be married right here at home—even at midnight if you please. I’ll see to a parson for you.”

“A real one,” Robert said firmly.

“Of course. I’ll fetch a local, so that Lander may vet him if you don’t trust me.”

“I would be a fool to trust you,” Robert said without rancor.

The man grinned. “I take it as a compliment. But I can be honorable when it suits me. You shall have an honest parson to preside, on that you may count.”

“All right,” Robert said, turning toward the door.

“I’d better be the one to go to the law court,” Lander said. “After all the commotion here this morning, their nerves will be hung on a hair-trigger.”

No one needed an explanation of who “they” might be. Robert checked an argument—Lander was right, he could leave the house with greater ease and safety. It was only Robert’s inner agitation that made the idea of standing here waiting for everything to happen seem intolerable.

“Fine,” Robert said. “Go.” He went to the sideboard, poured himself a cup of coffee from a silver pot, and sat down. He felt as if a heavy weight was slowly pressing down on him, crushing his lungs.

With an effort, he swallowed the black, sharp liquid. Lander went to the door. He paused there, with his hand on the knob.

“Sir,” he said, “I must ask you, before I do this—have you any warmth of affection at all for Mrs. Hamilton?”

“Bloody hell, Lander,” Robert said, laying his head back.

“You feel nothing for her?” Lander’s voice rose mistrustfully.

“Do I feel anything for her,” Robert repeated, his eyes fixed on the intricate plaster crown molding that adorned the ceiling. “Do I? Only I’ve had her in my heart every day of my life for ten years.”

“You do little enough to show it,” Lander said. “To be frank.”

“The devil with you.”

“I feel a great deal of attachment to Mrs. Hamilton. I would not wish to see her made unhappy. I believe she deserves to marry a gentlemen who truly loves her, and not just—”

“Just what?’’ Robert sat up, eyeing him.
 

Lander’s mouth set mulishly. “Someone who will not appreciate her properly.”
 

“I love her.”

Lander appeared unconvinced, lingering at the door.

“All right. I am vastly, desperately, deeply in love with her,” Robert said in elaborate assurance, mocking Lander’s serious tone. “How mawkishly must I say so to satisfy you?’’

“I don’t—it’s not—sir. It’s just that you seem so—bitter about it.”
 

Robert lifted his lip in disdain. “How young you are.”
 

“I must hope I never grow older in that sense.”
 

“Then make sure that you never lay your life in a woman’s hands,” Robert said. “So that she may cut you with a look, or run you through the heart with her judicious opinion of your character, or mention the men she might have had if fate had been kinder to her.” The venom in his own voice was startling to him. It was as if some other man spoke through him, and yet he knew every word was true. “Fall in love all you like, my friend,” he said harshly. “And the more you love her, the farther you had better run.”

Lander gazed at him. Slowly he shook his head. “I won’t believe that. I can’t believe that.”

“Take yourself off,” Robert said sullenly. “This is a waste of time.”

Lander left the room without another word. Robert closed his eyes, sipping the coffee, attempting to calm himself while plain, primitive fear was strangling him. He heard the other man’s chair scrape.

“I had better be off for the parson,” Dr. Joyce said.

Robert opened his eyes. He looked up.

“Still certain you want a real one?” the man asked, with a faint ironical smirk.

Robert held his coffee between his two hands. The liquid trembled in the cup. He took a deep, sharp breath. “Yes! Cease asking me that.”

His mentor nodded. He gave Robert a wordless cuff on the shoulder as he passed toward the door.

Folie had thought of several more ways to avoid a wedding, but each of them had been systematically ridiculed as hopelessly unavailing when she suggested them to Robert. After her third trip downstairs to offer her suggestions, she had to sit on her bed, stuff her knuckles into her mouth like a child, and bite down until she whimpered in order to prevent herself from weeping.

As much as he seemed to insist on this wedding, he became colder and angrier at any mention of it, even any idea to prevent it or afterwards annul it. Lander was gone to obtain a license, she knew. Folie was beginning to feel frantic, like a bird trapped into a cage with some unpredictable beast waking in a dark corner. No matter how amiable or careful she tried to be with this creature, she had the sensation that she was somehow doomed to be mauled and broken.

Her brief fantasies, nurtured by Melinda during those moments near the sunlit bridge, seemed far away and foolish now. Even the idea that she and Robert could be real friends receded, when he was so baffling and ominous; when she could never seem to understand or foresee what would move him, only feel the shadow moving beyond sight or touch.

When Mrs. Paine returned, everything seemed to become completely dream-like. Like a good fairy bent on happiness at any odds, she bustled about the bedchamber—Folie had brought no wedding dress? Well, she must wear one of the gowns Melinda had not packed in her rush. A seam attacked to enlarge the bodice, a biscuit-colored ribbon substituted for the pink, some blonde lace added, and it would be as elegant as you please. Miss Davenport was given the task of adding lace, and when Mrs. Witham-Stanley arrived, bearing some pretty marchpane candies to regale the bride’s attendants, she declared that no bodice seam had ever defeated her yet, and began snipping expertly at the gown.

Miss Davenport, becoming uncharacteristically enthusiastic, began to fashion a little headdress from a matching length of lace and arrange it in Folie’s hair. When Folie was dressed and curled, the ladies sat back, giggling over a tray of tea and marchpane while she stood before the mirror, gazing at herself in bemusement. There was general agreement among her lighthearted attendants that the gown looked very well, but something was missing from the bodice.

“A flower,” Mrs. Witham-Stanley suggested.
 

“Do you have a necklace, my dear?” Mrs. Paine asked.
 

“Melinda took our jewelry,” Folie said. The ladies began to search their minds and persons for an alternative. Mrs. Witham-Stanley bemoaned the fact that she had not thought to bring her mother’s single diamond drop from home.

“Even a small pin,” Miss Davenport advised. “Not gold, that would be too extravagant. Something rich and pale.”

“Oh!” Folie said, remembering. She turned suddenly, and stooped to look beneath the bed. It was there. With a little effort, she reached under and retrieved a hat box. Inside was a small ivory casket. Folie lifted it out, set it on the dressing table, and opened the box.

Robert’s letters were there, bound in a yellow ribbon. She laid them carefully on the table—she had not taken them out in years, though she still could recite every line.

“Oh,” Mrs. Paine breathed, her eyes glistening. “My dear. Are those your love letters?’’